Have all the songs been said?
Are all the singers dead?
Is all the music fled?—
The sum and aim of life,
One dreary struggle, rife
With greed and sordid strife?—
Man but a dull machine,
Living a vast routine
Of narrow purpose mean?
Oh! while one leaf swings high
Against an azure sky—
In springtime's ecstasy,
There breathes yet the sublime,
There beats yet living rhyme,
'T is still the young world's prime.
Nature has high commands,
Bears gifts with lavish hands,
To him who understands!
